Get ready for an exhilarating dive into the latest and greatest from Microsoft 2024 release wave 1 for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform. From innovative AI-driven capabilities and seamless integrations to feature enhancements and sleek user interfaces, buckle up as we unveil the top feature updates that are set to redefine businesses.  

While the full list of updates may be too extensive to squeeze into one blog post, we’ve meticulously curated the cream of the crop just for you. Join us as we navigate the landscape of 2024 and beyond with Dynamics 365 and Power Platform, where the possibilities are limitless, and the future is now. 

Dynamics 365 Sales 

Microsoft 2023 Release Wave 1 for Dynamics 365 Sales focuses on enabling sales professionals to better understand their customers, accelerate deals with actionable insights, make the workflow more productive, configure and extend Copilot in Sales, and empower sales leaders with generative AI. By evolving with the demanding roles of sellers, Dynamics 365 Sales enables them to prioritise their work, leverage intelligent sales tools, collaborate better for improved productivity and spend more time enhancing customer experience and sales.  

Some of the key updates are: 

• Elevate your sales pitch using Copilot email assistance 
• Use Copilot to get answers from your sales documents 
• Maximise sales success with AI-suggested past successful deals 
• Know your account better with AI-generated account summary 
• Summarise lengthy emails using Copilot in Dynamics 365 Sales 
• Guide sellers to work simultaneously using multiple sequences 
• Assign leads, opportunities to sellers based on individual capacity 
• Analyse opportunities better by grouping them and aggregating their values 

Dynamics 365 Business Central  

Dynamics 365 Business Central updates from Microsoft 2024 release wave 1 enables SMEs to adapt faster with Power Platform, experience improved system capabilities for users, admins, and developers, and leverage deeper reporting features. Plus, enhancements in features that help manage finances, supply chain, manufacturing, shipping, projects, services mean companies can focus on their business objectives while ensuring compliance, operational efficiency, and informed decision-making. 

Additional Business Central updates in this release include: 

• Improve approval processes via Power Automate 
• Usability improves for service and projects 
• Integrate Field Service and Business Central 
• Start creating Power Automate flows with Copilot 
• Map e-documents to purchase order lines with Copilot 
• Create sales lines easily with Copilot 

Dynamics 365 Customer Service  

Get ready to supercharge your Dynamics 365 Customer Service with Microsoft 2023 first release updates for Dynamics 365! These upgrades are here to help your agents become more efficient and productive than ever before allowing them to deliver faster, better, and more personalised customer service. From case management, advanced routing, and Copilot to knowledge management, and Microsoft Teams integration. 

Here’s an inside scoop of all the major updates:  

• Forecast volume, agent demand for customer interactions 
• Compose emails using improved attachment experience 
• Enhancements in email composition experience for agents 
• Get relevant results with filters for Copilot 
• Explore enhancements to outbound dialling 
• Mask sensitive data and prevent unauthorised access  

Dynamics 365 Field Service  

The latest Dynamics 365 Field Service updates from Microsoft 2024 first release helps businesses transform their service operations with more efficient management, scheduling, and delivery. Geared towards connecting people, processes, and places for more personalised customer experiences, this release introduces the next generation of Copilot-driven experiences, new work order workflows for service managers and frontline workers, and AI-integrated Microsoft Teams and Outlook. 

More Dynamics 365 Field Service updates to elevate your service operations: 

• Generate custom responses and summaries in Outlook with AI 
• Create work orders in Teams using AI 
• Get insights for technicians from Copilot 
• Offline sync settings for frontline workers 
• See bookings in the agenda view in new mobile experience 
• Preview work orders in Teams with link unfurling 
• Integrate Field Service with Business Central 
• Integrate financial and inventory management 

Dynamics 365 Finance 

Microsoft 2024 wave 1 release for Dynamics 365 Finance further elevates autonomous finance for organisations looking to gain competitive advantage and adapt to changing markets. These updates add AI enhancements for easier business performance planning, improves automation in bank reconciliation and tax, and upgrades core financial and reporting capabilities for informed decision-making at scale.  

Key updates to look out for: 

• Manage tasks and create reports with generative AI 
• Complete, analyse, and run what-if scenarios in Excel and Copilot for planning 
• Speed results with collections coordinator summary 
• Check out new AP clerk workspace capabilities 
• Financial tags support added to more journals and documents 
• Add efficiency with enhanced bank reconciliation report 

Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management  

This release wave for Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management optimises and enhances supply chain processes and provides companies with the insight they need to adapt to the changing market. Manufacturers, distributors, and retailers can now experience enhanced functionality when it comes to forecasting, planning, manufacturing, managing inventory, sales, procurement, warehousing, and transportation.  

What’s more, the following major updates make things even more exciting: 

• Enable efficient, accurate demand planning with Copilot 
• Make procure-to-pay purchasing decisions with Copilot help 
• Enable quality control for goods-in-transit orders 
• Calculate capable-to-promise quantities in real time 
• Forecast with intelligence for validated demand plans 
• Build collaborative, accurate demand plans powered by AI 

Dynamics 365 Project Operations 

What Microsoft 2024 release wave 1 brings for Dynamics 365 Project Operations is a range of enhancements for resource bookings, assignment reconciliation, contract management, entry and approval workflows, mobile experience, and generative AI. Not only do these updates improve usability and experience but also enhance workflow efficiency and project visibility.  

Here’s a quick rundown of Dynamics 365 Project Operations key updates: 

• Use copilot enhancements to tailor project status reports 
• Use progress billing for resource and nonstock scenarios 
• Create budgets with summarisation during estimate import 
• Easily summarise budget lines in Dynamics 365 apps 
• Improve performance for resource booking generation 

Dynamics 365 Human Resources 

Microsoft 2024 release wave 1 for Dynamics 365 Human Resources reduces even more manual processes and seamlessly integrates your employee data. By unifying siloed data and improving employee experience, both HR and staff can better focus on their work instead of time-intensive manual HR tasks. 

Here are the top updates that improve HR functions: 

• Explore recruiting copilot scenarios 
• Use recruiting for service centric organisations 

Dynamics 365 Commerce 

When it comes to Dynamics 365 Commerce, this release wave covers improvements across point-of-sale (POS) and mobile POS functionality, extending store commerce for Android and iOS, and B2B commerce. Other enhancements include enhanced customer engagement features, modernised digital presence, improved business agility and scalability, and advanced reporting for a more frictionless commerce.  

Key updates for Dynamics 365 Commerce include: 

• Enable business buyers to purchase for multiple organisations 
• Enable customers to specify order delivery date, notes 
• Enable purchase order orchestration 
• Check out faster with optimised payment flows 
• Move historical data to non-indexed tables for reduced costs 

Dynamics 365 Customer Insights 

Microsoft 2024 first release updates for Dynamics 365 Customer Insights (formerly D365 Marketing and D365 Customer Insights) cover a range of feature updates that enable organisations to efficiently manage customer journeys with real-time, actionable insights. From unified sales and marketing and real-time personalisation to improved Copilot assistance and customer engagement features, this release has everything covered.  

Additional key updates include: 

• Use automation to manage segments and measures 
• Elevate customer experiences in real time 
• Take campaigns from concept to launch using Copilot 
• Reach your customers at the right moment with send scheduling 

Power Platform 

Microsoft 2024 release wave 1 for Power Platform is packed with key enhancements for Power Apps, Power Pages, Power Automate, among others. It encompasses AI-powered app creation with Copilot, modern app design tools, and streamlined autonation with Business Central integration for an even more powerful low-code/no-code business solution. 

Major Power Platform updates from this release include: 

• Use copilot to build and edit apps in Power Apps Studio 
• Get data insights with copilot sidecar on by default 
• Get answers from website data using copilot 
• Experience enhanced file upload for Power Pages sites 
• Get quick insights and recommendations in Copilot for Process Mining 

What lies ahead??

As a user of Dynamics 365 or Power Platform, you may be eager to explore the latest updates from Microsoft’s 2024 first release and harness their potential. However, if you’re new to these Microsoft business solutions, you might be interested in understanding how they help you succeed. Rest assured, Dogma‘s team of experts is ready to assist you. As your trusted advisors, we will navigate you through the deployment process of Dynamics 365 and Power Platform and also pinpoint the features that best suit your business needs.